Archives for April 2015

The End of the Rainbow

Read

“If anyone takes a human life, that person’s life will also be taken by human hands. For God made human beings in his own image. Now be fruitful and multiply, and repopulate the earth.” . . .

Then God said, “I am giving you a sign of my covenant with you and with all living creatures, for all generations to come. I have placed my rainbow in the clouds. It is the sign of my covenant with you and with all the earth. When I send clouds over the earth, the rainbow will appear in the clouds, and I will remember my covenant with you and with all living creatures. Never again will the floodwaters destroy all life. When I see the rainbow in the clouds, I will remember the eternal covenant between God and every living creature on earth.”
(Genesis 9:6-7, 12-16)

Reflect

Here God explains why murder is so wrong: To kill a person is to kill one made in God’s image. Because all human beings are made in God’s image, all people possess the qualities that distinguish them from animals: morality, reason, creativity, and self-worth.

God wants us to recognize his image in all people. Only God has given life, so no one else has the right to take it away.

Despite God’s prohibition of murder, we continue to see it throughout the Bible. Cain had already killed Abel. Moses would kill an Egyptian. David would kill Uriah the Hittite. Ahab and Jezebel would kill Naboth. Paul would kill Christians.

When Jesus taught about murder, he took the issue deeper—to the attitude of the heart. Murder grows out of anger. His point was not that we should never be angry, but that we should deal with it quickly and rightly. To forgive and be reconciled.

God will require each person to account for his or her actions. We cannot harm or kill another human being without answering to God. A penalty must be paid. Justice will be served. When we interact with others, we are interacting with beings made by God, beings to whom God offers eternal life.

Respond

God calls us to see our friends, neighbors, and enemies as creatures whom he made with dignity, value, and purpose. Anger will still arise in our hearts from time to time, but we can learn to deal with those conflicts and still honor the creatures God made. Who are you harboring anger toward today? What steps can you take toward forgiveness and reconciliation?

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If Jesus were to tell the parable of the lost sheep today, he might make it the parable of the lost dog. The idea is the same. If your dog runs off, you search for it until you find it. And when you bring it home, your family celebrates.

The next story is better understood with a bit of historical explanation. Palestinian women traditionally received a set of 10 coins as a wedding gift. These coins were carried around in a purse or on a chain and held a significance similar to a modern-day wedding ring. As such, these coins held sentimental value that went well beyond their monetary value. No wonder this woman would search so fervently to find the lost coin, and no wonder she would want to celebrate after finding it!

We might even be able relate to the third story. Imagine that you’re a parent and your son leaves home with as much money as he can pull together. He sets out for a big city like New York, Los Angeles or San Francisco. He is on his own. But instead of working and being responsible, he blows every cent on drugs, sex and alcohol and ends up on the street, homeless and hungry.

As his parent, you worry about him. Every time the phone rings, you hope it’s him. One day you open the front door, and there he stands! Relief is immediate. You throw your arms around him. Words can’t express the joy you feel. Your son who was lost is home!

These three stories express how God feels about every spiritual explorer. And it’s how he feels about you. He’s looking for you because he loves you. God is eager to forgive you, and all of heaven is ready to celebrate your return. But, like the son in the third story, you must decide to come home to his waiting arms.

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Powerful Patience

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Then God said to Noah, “Leave the boat, all of you—you and your wife, and your sons and their wives. Release all the animals—the birds, the livestock, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—so they can be fruitful and multiply throughout the earth.”

So Noah, his wife, and his sons and their wives left the boat. And all of the large and small animals and birds came out of the boat, pair by pair.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord, and there he sacrificed as burnt offerings the animals and birds that had been approved for that purpose. And the Lord was pleased with the aroma of the sacrifice and said to himself, “I will never again curse the ground because of the human race, even though everything they think or imagine is bent toward evil from childhood. I will never again destroy all living things.”
(Genesis 8:15-21)Reflect

The story of the Flood is an example of great patience—both God’s patience with us and Noah’s patience with God.

Throughout the Bible, God showing his love and patience toward men and women in order to save them. Although he knows that their hearts are evil, he continues to try to reach them. When we sin or reject God, we deserve to be destroyed by his judgment. But God has promised never again to destroy everything on earth until the Day of Judgment, when Christ will return to destroy evil. Now every change of season reminds us of his patience.

Noah also exhibited great patience. While on the ark, occasionally Noah would send a bird out to test the earth and see if it was dry. But Noah didn’t get out of the boat until God told him to. He was waiting for God’s timing. God knew that even though the water was gone, the earth was not dry enough for Noah and his family to venture out. What patience Noah showed, especially after spending an entire year inside his boat! We, like Noah, must patiently trust God during those difficult times when we must wait.

Respond

Waiting for God’s timing can be difficult. Things look good from our view, so we want to rush ahead of God’s timing for us. God knows what’s best and his timing is always perfect. Where do you need to take a step back and wait for God to lead you? Ask God for patience.

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The Key to Radical Love

Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11–12)

One of the questions I posed recently, while preaching on loving our enemies from Matthew 5:44, was, How do you love the people who kidnap you and then kill you?

How can we do this? Where does power to love like this come from? Just think how astonishing this is when it appears in the real world! Could anything show the truth and power and reality of Christ more than this?

I believe Jesus gives us the key to this radical, self-sacrificing love in the very same chapter.

In Matthew 5:11–12, he again talks about being persecuted. What is remarkable about these verses is that Jesus says that you are able not only to endure the mistreatment of the enemy, but rejoice in it. This seems even more beyond our reach. If I could do this — if I could rejoice in being persecuted — then it would be possible to love my persecutors. If the miracle of joy in the midst of the horror of injustice and pain and loss could happen, then the miracle of love for the perpetrators could happen too.

Jesus gives the key to joy in these verses. He says, “Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven.” The key to joy is faith in God’s future grace — “your reward is great in heaven.” I believe this joy is the freeing power to love our enemies when they persecute us. If that is true, then the command to love is a command to set our minds on things that are above, not on things that are on the earth (Colossians 3:2).

The command to love our enemy is a command to find our hope and our satisfaction in God and his great reward — his future grace. The key to radical love is faith in future grace. We must be persuaded in the midst of our agony that the love of God is “better than life” (Psalm 63:3). Loving your enemy doesn’t earn you the reward of heaven. Treasuring the reward of heaven empowers you to love your enemy.

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Flooded and Floated!

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For forty days the floodwaters grew deeper, covering the ground and lifting the boat high above the earth. As the waters rose higher and higher above the ground, the boat floated safely on the surface. Finally, the water covered even the highest mountains on the earth, rising more than twenty-two feet above the highest peaks. All the living things on earth died—birds, domestic animals, wild animals, small animals that scurry along the ground, and all the people. . . . The only people who survived were Noah and those with him in the boat.
(Genesis 7:17-21, 23)

Reflect
Was the Flood a local event, or did it cover the entire earth? A universal flood was certainly possible. Enough water exists in the oceans to cover all dry land. And since God promised never again to destroy the earth with a flood, this flood must have either covered the entire earth or destroyed all the inhabitants of the earth. Remember, God’s reason for sending the Flood was to destroy all the earth’s wickedness. It would take a major flood to accomplish this.

And how did this animal kingdom roundup happen? Scholars estimate that almost 45,000 animals could have fit into the boat. Pairs of every animal joined Noah in the boat; seven pairs were taken of those animals used for sacrifice. Did Noah and his sons spend years collecting all the animals?

In reality, the creation, along with Noah, did just as God commanded. Gathering the animals seemed to be no problem—God took care of those details while Noah did his part by building the boat. Noah didn’t need to worry about how the animals would get there; he just trusted God.

Respond
Often we do just the opposite of Noah. We worry about the details over which we have no control, while neglecting specific areas that are under our control such as attitudes, relationships, or responsibilities. Like Noah, concentrate on what God gives you to do, and leave the rest to him. What details do you need to entrust to God?

There is a peculiar goodness of God. That is, there is not only God’s general goodness that he shows to all people, making his sun rise on the evil and the good (Matthew 5:45), but also a peculiar goodness for “those who fear him.”

This goodness is abundant beyond measure. It is boundless. It lasts forever. It is all-encompassing. There is only goodness for those who fear him. Everything works together for their good. Even their pains are filled with profit (Romans 5:3–5).

But those who do not fear him receive a temporary goodness — a goodness that does not lead to repentance, but leads to worse destruction (Romans 2:4).

2. The fear of the Lord

The fear of the Lord is the fear of straying from him. Therefore it expresses itself in taking refuge in God. That’s why two conditions are mentioned in Psalm 31:19 — fearing the Lord and taking refuge in him.

They seem to be opposites. Fear seems to drive away and taking refuge seems to draw in. But when we see that this fear is a fear of not being drawn in, then they work together.

There is a real trembling for the saints. “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). But it is the trembling one feels in the arms of a Father who has just plucked his child from the undertow of the ocean.

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A profound mystery: God becomes a slave. This implies very specifically that God wants to be known through servanthood. Such is God’s own self-disclosure. Thus, when Jesus describes his return in glory at the end of the world, he says, “It will be good for those servants whose master finds them watching when he comes. Truly I tell you, he will dress himself to serve, will have them recline at the table and will come and wait on them” (Luke 12:37).

Jesus remains Lord by being a servant.

The beloved disciple presents a mind-bending image of God, blowing away all previous conceptions of who the Messiah is and what discipleship is all about. What a scandalous and unprecedented reversal of the world’s values! To prefer to be the servant rather than the lord of the household is the path of downward mobility in an upwardly mobile culture. To taunt the idols of prestige, honor and recognition, to refuse to take oneself seriously or to take seriously others who take themselves seriously, to dance to the tune of a different drummer and to freely embrace the servant lifestyle—these are the attitudes that bear the stamp of authentic discipleship.

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04/20/2015

Stay Connected Through Prayer

An excerpt from The Grave Robber by Mark Batterson

Since writing The Circle Maker, I’ve heard hundreds of testimonies of miraculous answers to prayer. The common denominator among them is perseverance in prayer. Those who got an answer kept circling their Jericho until the walls fell down.

They didn’t just pray like it depended on God; they also worked like it depended on them. They didn’t just dream big; they also prayed hard. Most of them didn’t get an answer after their first request, but they kept praying through.

Remember the story of Jesus healing the blind man with mud? It’s one of the most encouraging miracles in the Gospels because it took two attempts. Even Jesus had to pray more than once! The first prayer resulted in a partial miracle, but Jesus wasn’t satisfied with 20/80 or 20/40 vision. So He doubled back and prayed a second time for a 20/20 miracle: “Then Jesus laid hands on his eyes again.”

The operative word is again. What do you need to pray for again? And again and again and again? Some miracles happen in stages—even healing miracles. If you get partial healing or partial relief, praise God for it. But don’t settle for half a miracle! Keep praying for the whole miracle to happen. Sometimes we let fear keep us from praying for a miracle because we feel like we will have failed if God doesn’t answer the way we want. That isn’t failure because the answer isn’t up to us.

THE ONLY WAY WE CAN FAIL IS FAILING TO ASK

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve asked God to heal my asthma. It has not happened, but does that mean I quit asking? I’ve resigned myself to the simple fact that healing is in God’s hands. That’s His job, not mine. My job is to keep on asking. After all, God won’t answer 100 percent of the prayers we don’t pray.

On a recent trip to Israel, I visited the synagogue in Capernaum where Jesus performed multiple miracles. We actually held a healing service right there, and I felt prompted to pray for healing once again. If I was writing the script, I can’t think of a more dramatic way of finally answering my lifelong prayer. But the healing didn’t happen. I definitely felt a twinge of disappointment when I had to take my inhaler later that day, but I’m going to continue asking. When and where and how God decides to answer is His call. I might not experience healing on this side of heaven, but as long as God gives me breath to breathe, I’ll keep asking.

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Obedient Preparations

Read
“Build a large boat from cypress wood and waterproof it with tar, inside and out. Then construct decks and stalls throughout its interior. . . .”

“Look! I am about to cover the earth with a flood that will destroy every living thing that breathes. Everything on earth will die. But I will confirm my covenant with you. So enter the boat—you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring a pair of every kind of animal—a male and a female—into the boat with you to keep them alive during the flood. Pairs of every kind of bird, and every kind of animal, and every kind of small animal that scurries along the ground, will come to you to be kept alive. And be sure to take on board enough food for your family and for all the animals.”

So Noah did everything exactly as God had commanded him.
(Genesis 6:14, 17-22)

Reflect
Noah got right to work when God told him to build the huge boat. Other people must have been warned about the coming disaster (1 Peter 3:20), but apparently they did not expect it to happen. Today things haven’t changed much. Each day thousands of people are warned of God’s inevitable judgment, yet most of them don’t really believe it will happen.

Does the flood mean that God regretted creating humanity? Was he admitting he made a mistake? No, God does not change his mind (1 Samuel 15:29). Instead, he was expressing sorrow for what the people had done to themselves, as a parent might express sorrow over a rebellious child. God was sorry that the people he created had chosen sin and death instead of a relationship with him. Still, God did not abandon them. He chose to preserve humanity through Noah.

The boat Noah built was no canoe! Picture yourself building a boat as long as one and a half football fields and as high as a four-story building. The boat was exactly six times longer than it was wide—the same ratio used by modern shipbuilders. This huge boat was probably built miles from any significant body of water by the few faithful men who believed God’s promises and obeyed his commands.

Respond
Don’t expect people to welcome or accept your message of God’s judgment against sin. Those who don’t believe in God will deny his judgment. But remember God’s promise to Noah to keep him safe. This can inspire you to trust God for deliverance in the judgment that we will all face.